Monday 24 September 2012

Day Seven - Angels, Beavers and Beeches


"The Angels have come in many different guises this week but none more so than today.  They greeted us at every turn on this seventh day down south among the beeches in the Burnhams.

First off, beavers, cubs and brownies accompanied by more senior scouts and stalwarts of the Hedgerley Youth Club had prepared a welcome committee to serve us tea and coffee and show off their newly built Norwegian timber building.  Complete with kitchen, chill out sofas, pool table and a brand new wooden floor (thanks to the Buckinghamshire Community Foundation), it was something to be proud of indeed.  The site nestles in woodland and gives lots of scope for outdoor activities.  Bonfires and toasting marshmallows still seems to be as popular as ever!

Local girl, Katie Jackson who runs the Youth Club is also a horsewoman.  She had commandeered husband and friend to guide us over the busy A355 and down Egypt Lane to bring us to Burnham Beeches.  This glorious piece of ancient woodland is owned by the Corporation of the City of London.   A far sighted philanthropist had sought to save its original form from encroaching development as far back as 1880.  It is a superb recreational space and, on a sunny, warm September day, it was teeming with people young and old walking, cycling, pushing prams or just enjoying the scenery.  

Our goal was to find the Angel of Determination.  Rhonda Fenwick runs the MONA LISA ARTS & MEDIA PROJECT and their goal is to light up imaginations and inspire young people through the arts and media.  A truly inspiring programme,  which has involved eight local schools in the Burnham area and became part of the Cultural Olympiad,  is ‘The Angel Trail’.  It will consist of ten sculptural pieces, each embodying an Olympic value.  Seven have been completed and I had set out to see three of them on this leg of the ride.   This one (the Angel of Determination) is sited in Burnham Beeches and is fashioned out of a storm damaged oak trunk.

Our next Angel was ‘Friendship’ at St Peters’ School in Burnham.  A strange sight must have greeted residents of Grenville Close as four riders cantered across the green sward to make our way to the school where children had been busy all week drawing horses.  I hope they enjoyed creating them as much as I enjoyed looking at them.  A ring of dancers in polished steel forms the Angel of Friendship, under whose wings I was led before setting out again for Cliveden House and our third Angel of the day.

Thanks to some very persuasive cohorts, I had been allowed by the National Trust to ride up the entrance drive and by the Manager of Cliveden House Hotel to ride up to the magnificent entrance porch.  Wow!  We really did feel like film stars.  Clearly the National Trust visitors thought we were.  The horses acted like a magnet to the children and they came up to stroke them and learn all about their past live as police horses.  The horses themselves were more than content, their patience being rewarded by apples and carrots from the Cliveden kitchens!

Alexander Shepard was the angel who had made it all possible and for me to reach – as I had always envisaged – this most southerly point on the banks of the Thames.  And what a bank.  To overlook the grand parterre hanging above the wooded slopes above the river Thames is breathtaking under any circumstances.  To do so on a glorious September day, blue skies above and blue hills beyond into Berkshire while an elegant tea of thinly cut sandwiches was served was paradise indeed.  An amazing experience.

The horses by this time had been taken home so four footsoldiers explored the Fitness Trail and found the carved piece of Preseli Bluestone that is the Angel of Aspiration.  This unique stone comes from the Preseli mountains in South West Wales and it is the stone that built Stonehenge.   It is said in old folklore to have magical healing powers.    We could not have aspired to greater satisfaction as the sun set on the seventh day."

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